


Fighters

by SilverBlaze85



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Branding, Gen, Implied Femslash, Jaeger crew, Jaegercon Bingo, Piercings, Tattoos, Tumblr: jaegercon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:00:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverBlaze85/pseuds/SilverBlaze85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For my Jaegercon Bingo square of "Kill Count". From the support-crew of the Jaeger teams, and their views on marking the Kaiju kills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fighters

It’s a few days after Striker Eureka is brought to Hong Kong that Mara starts subtly questioning, openly admiring the ink of locals and staking out her new shop. She has it narrowed down to two before the Striker Eureka is summoned, and she occupies the time the war machine is gone with deciding on her choice, tossing it back and forth in her hands like a slinky, until the faint whump of choppers means the Jaeger is coming home. 

Another Kaiju down, and the crews hit the ground running as soon as the Jaeger is back in the hanger. It’ll be several days before the crews get to stand down, the time filled with scrubbing off Kaiju blood and guts and skin, wiping sweat and blood out of the Conn Pod, inspecting every inch of the Jaeger to ensure she’s at one hundred per cent capacity, every weapon reloaded, every circuit complete, every fluid filled. They have less time to do it now, Striker being sent out sooner and sooner as the Kaiju rise, but it’s okay. They know her like they know themselves, fingers having passed over the same pieces of metal multiple times. 

When their leave comes almost a week later, she makes her way to the shop, and explains in very broken Chinese what she wants. It takes some time, but they make it work, and she settles into the chair, listens to the hum of the tattoo gun fire up, and the tension bleeds out at the ink flows in. When the gun clicks off, she has another paw-print, a ninth to match the other eight stalking across her back, to mark another Kaiju down, to mark another mission where they came home. The Rangers wear their kill counts proudly, brag about them, but the crews are just as proud of those kills. They may not be on the front line, pounding Kaiju, but they’re in the war just the same, fighting the same fight, and it’s their sweat and blood that ensures the Jaegers are ready to fight again. 

There’s a bloke in their group, Striker’s crew, which has a missile brand, gets one of them to heat it after every kill, has the brands on his chest, just like their Jaeger pilots. Cherno Alpha has an engineer that has little silver hoops in each ear, marching along the cartilage to mark off the kills like tiny silver soldiers. Avery, also Striker Crew, has those delightful tiny silver beads she adds to her nipple rings with each return, and there’s a paper-pusher up in LOCCENT that has a bracelet with bright, bold glass beads. It took Mara a few weeks to realize it wasn’t one Jaeger kills, but the total of all so far. The bracelet is a bit sobering to look at now. 

Even Newt down in Sciences marks the kills, albeit in an unconventional manner. He marks the dead, whereas most mark the living, but the tally is the same, at the end of the day. 

And after Striker went down, after the Shatterdome closed for good, she went to the shop and had them add two more paws, but outlined them only. They were kills, but not successful. Their Jaeger didn’t come home, so how can you count it successful?


End file.
